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Roundup 12/8: Hairy Situations Edition

Politicoreports that an omnibus appropriations package being crafted in Congress will give the National Institutes of Health a $692 million raise in 2010. That 2.3% bump would split the difference between the House of Representatives and Senate amounts.The House expects to vote on the package Thursday, but the Senate could take much longer.

The global tuberculosis burden is declining slowly, according to a report issued by the World Health Organization today—but the target of halving prevalence and mortality rates by 2015 will be "difficult" in Southeast Asia and "appears impossible" in Africa, the study says.

Beware the false positives lurking in home toxicology tests in which citizens test their own hair, says the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Reacting to SwiftHack/ClimateGate, Republicans on the House Science and Technology Committee have introduced a resolution that calls for standards of scientific integrity to be followed on climate research.

Five European advisory panels have joined to urge a rethink of the way that the European Union organizes its research, development, and innovation policies.

Neuroscientist Susan Greenfield, the controversial head of the Royal Institution in London, may be out of job as financial problems at the organization have led a management review panel to conclude that the director's position should be reduced to part-time or eliminated.

Former Massachusetts Institute of Technology Dean Marilee Jones, who disappeared in 2007 after it emerged that she had fabricated academic credentials, has resurfaced as a consultant to universities, though she won't name which ones.